Editor's Note The annual Commonwealth Fund’s Scorecard on State Health System Performance, released June 22, finds an increase in preventable deaths in all states in 2021, especially among Blacks and American Indian/Alaska Native people, and a nearly two-fold increase in maternal mortality from 2018 to 2021. Massachusetts, Hawaii, and New…

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Editor's Note The Joint Commission on February 1 announced a new search site that is available for finding Joint Commission-accredited organizations that provide substance use disorder (SUD) treatment and the levels of care they provide. Individuals seeking care, providers, state authorities, and payers can search by organization name or location…

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Editor's Note On January 10, the American College of Surgeons (ACS) reported on a new best practice guideline released to help healthcare professionals screen trauma patients for mental health disorders and substance misuse. Because alcohol and substance misuse problems are prevalent and increasing in trauma patients, this guideline is an…

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Editor's Note The American Hospital Association (AHA) sent a special request to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) on December 1 asking to clarify and extend rules that were created during COVID-19, which allowed providers to virtually prescribe medication for addiction-treatment, Becker’s Hospital Review December 2 reports. During the pandemic, providers…

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Editor's Note This study led by researchers at Rutgers University finds that Black and White women in their mid 20s who reported frequent binge drinking during the pandemic were more likely to become infected with COVID-19. The researchers examined seven subgroups of 938 young Black and White women ranging from…

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Editor's Note This study led by the RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, California, finds a 23.5% decrease in substance use disorder treatment admissions across the US during COVID-19. In 2020, the number of substance use disorders admissions decreased from 65.9 to 50.4 per 10,000. The decrease was larger for men (87.5…

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Editor's Note In this study from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, researchers identify distinct demographic subpopulations with diverging drinking trajectories during the first 10 months of the COVID-19 pandemic. A total of 8,130 US adults were surveyed biweekly from March 2020 to January 2021 on their past-week alcohol…

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Editor's Note Two years after the COVID-19 pandemic began, inflation, money issues, and the war in Ukraine have pushed US stress to alarming levels, according to the American Psychological Association (APA). APA partnered with the The Harris Poll to conduct a survey between February 7 and 14, 2022, and again…

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Editor's Note This study from the University of California, Los Angeles, finds that Blacks had the largest percentage increase in overdose mortality rates in 2020, overtaking the rates among Whites for the first time since 1999. Using data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and National Center for…

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Editor's Note This study by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine and the Veterans Affairs St Louis Health Care System finds that those who have had COVID-19 were 60% more likely to experience mental health problems for up to a year. The analysis involved 153,848 patients who survived the…

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